Chapter 38: Buttered Sacraments
The scent of frying garlic and sage curled through the sun-drenched kitchen, a rich counterpoint to the salt breeze drifting through the open window. Rebel moved with a silent, unhurried rhythm, his tattooed hands deft as they sliced through a cluster of ripe heirloom tomatoes. He’d learned this, the precise chiffonade of basil, the perfect sear on a piece of sourdough, by watching the Jade family’s private chef through a long lens for two solid months a lifetime ago. Another stolen skill for her.
He heard the soft shuffle of bare feet on tile and didn’t turn. He just listened, letting her take in the scene: the copper pans gleaming, the spread of food taking shape—smoked salmon, avocado, eggs waiting in a blue ceramic bowl. Her presence was a slight change in the air pressure, a soft static he felt on his skin.
“You cook,” Sammy said, her voice still sleep-raw and thin.
“I obsess,” he corrected gently, cracking an egg one-handed into the sizzling butter. “Potatoes are five minutes out. You like them crispy.”
She hovered in the doorway, wrapped in one of his old band shirts, her short blonde hair a chaotic cloud around her pale face. The hollows under her eyes were still there, but less like bruises today, more like shadows. Progress.
He slid a plate across the marble island toward the stool he’d pulled out for her. “Sit. Please.”
She did, perching on the edge, watching his hands. “You’re not going to ask me what I want?”
He finished plating the eggs, sunny-side up, and set them before her alongside the salmon and a pile of the golden hash browns. He pushed a glass of fresh orange juice toward her.
“What Sammy wants, Sammy gets. My new law.” He leaned against the counter opposite her, arms crossed, giving her space. “But today, what I want is for you to eat that. All of it.”
She picked up a fork, her movements slow, deliberate. She cut into an egg, the yolk spilling like liquid gold over the salmon. She took a bite, closed her eyes, and chewed.
A single, slow tear tracked down her cheek, but she swallowed. “It’s good.”
“Yeah,” he said, his own throat tightened.
He watched her take another bite, then another, each one a small victory that felt larger than any he’d ever known.
Sunlight pooled on the marble counter, warming the space between them. Sammy ate with a quiet intensity, as if focusing on the taste of lemon and dill, the texture of crisp potato, could keep the darker thoughts at bay. She finally looked up, her fork hovering.
"Crepes," she said, the word quiet but clear.
He blinked, pulled from his silent vigil. "Hmm?"
"That time you made breakfast for me and Caleb." She speared a piece of avocado. "You made those perfect crepes with berries."
She paused, her hazel eyes finding his. They were clearer today, less like broken glass. "Where did you learn to cook?"
A phantom image flashed in his mind: the glare of digital lens, the meticulous movements of a man in a pristine white jacket through a distant window. Stolen knowledge, a love letter written in stolen ingredients. He’d given her a lie then, something about a YouTube channel.
He held her gaze now, no lies left. "I watched your chef," he admitted, his voice low."For about two months. Through the kitchen cameras.”
Sammy didn't flinch. She just took a slow sip of orange juice, her gaze steady over the rim of the glass. She set it down with a soft click.
"Of course you did." A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched her lips. Not a smile, but the ghost of one. "They were really good crepes."
"Obsession has fringe benefits," he said, a dry edge returning to his tone. It felt like a tentative step back toward something like normal, the dark humor that was their native language.
“I can also fold a fitted sheet like a navy seal and identify seven types of Swiss chard by sound. Useless superpowers."
She almost laughed, but it caught in her chest, turning into a soft exhale. She looked down at her half-finished plate, her expression shifting. The morning’s fragile peace was thinning.
He could see the memory of the recordings Grey had shown her moving behind her eyes again, a dark tide returning. She pushed the plate away an inch, her appetite gone.
"He showed me your face," she whispered, her voice tightening. "On the screen. You were...angry. Talking about me. Your mouth was moving, Rebel."
"He doctored it," Rebel said, the words coming fast and sharp. He moved around the island, not to touch her, but to be closer. He needed her to see the truth on his face.
“I never said those things. He spliced audio, manipulated video. It was a performance, Sammy. All of it."
"But the anger was real." She looked up, her eyes searching his. "I could see it. In your eyes. That wasn't faked."
He didn't deny it. He couldn't.
"The anger was probably real," he confirmed, his jaw tight. "But it was never at you. It was at the world for getting too close to you. It was at the guy who looked at you too long at the coffee shop. It was at myself, for wanting you so much it felt like a bone breaking every day." He leaned his palms on the counter, the cool marble grounding him. "He took my sickness and turned it into a weapon aimed at your heart. That's his only talent."
She was silent for a long moment, tracing the veins in the marble with a fingertip.
"I believe you," she finally said, the words so quiet they were almost lost in the hum of the refrigerator. "About the videos. About the manipulation." She lifted her gaze, and the pain there was fresh, but clear-eyed. "But the cameras, Rebel. That was all you. You let me think our game started when I found the ones in my room and liked the attention you gave me. But you were there for years before that. You watched me change."
"I did." No deflection. No excuse.
"My whole early twenties," she continued, the words gaining a fragile strength. "All my private moments. My crying. My...everything. You stole that privacy, and it'll take a long time to understand if I can ever forgive that part of you. While knowing a part of me loved it when I found out."
He nodded, the weight of it pressing down on him. It was a sentence he would live under, willingly. "I know."
"So," she said, pushing back from the stool. She stood, a little unsteady, but upright. She hugged herself, the shirt swallowing her small frame. "We take it a day at a time. Like you said. That’s the only way this works."
"One day," he agreed, a flicker of something like hope, cold and cautious, igniting in his chest.
"Good." She looked out the window toward the glittering sea, her profile pale and determined. "Today, I want to shower. By myself. With the door locked. And no cameras anywhere, Rebel. Not even one you forgot to tell me about."
He met her gaze, holding it. "There are no cameras here. I swear it on every broken thing inside me. The bathroom is down the hall. The door locks from the inside. You are completely alone in there."
She searched his face, looking for the lie. She must have found only the raw, ugly truth, because she gave a single, sharp nod.
“Okay." She took a step, then paused. "Will you be here when I'm done?"
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'll be right here, cleaning up. Making a pot of coffee that doesn't suck."
She almost smiled again, just a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Then she turned and walked slowly out of the kitchen, her bare feet whispering on the tile. He listened to the sound of a door closing down the hall, the distinct, solid click of a lock engaging.
The sound was a hole punched straight through him. It was the right sound, the necessary sound, and it hurt more than any bullet ever had.
He stared at her abandoned plate, the congealing egg yolk, the single perfect bite missing from the toast. He picked up his own cold coffee and drank it all, bitter and grounding.
Then he began to clean, scrubbing the pan with a focused ferocity, the steam from the hot water fogging the window overlooking the impossible beauty of the Santa Barbara morning. He washed every dish, wiped every surface, his movements a meditation. Each cleaned item was a stone laid on the path forward, a day-at-a-time promise.
The water in the pipes stopped running. The house was quiet, just the cry of a gull outside and the distant rush of the sea.
He stood at the sink, hands braced on the edge, head bowed, waiting. He was good at that. He would wait forever if he had to. The lock clicked open.
His head snapped up. He didn't turn. He just listened as her soft footsteps approached. She stopped in the doorway again, her skin flushed pink from the heat, her black hair damp and spiky. She smelled of his soap, clean and simple.
"See?" she said, her voice a little stronger. "All in one piece."
He turned then, leaning back against the sink, wiping his hands on a towel. "Yeah.I see."
“Watching you cook while standing across from me from across this island is more life-affirming than anything I experienced in those... other trailers"
It was a confession wrapped in a gift. The first one she’d given him since the world ended.
Rebel felt something crack open in his chest, warm and terrifying. "Lunch, then?" he asked, his own voice rough.
"I could obsess over a grilled cheese. The fancy kind, with three cheeses.
“I watched a French guy make it once.” Rebel smiled. “A three-cheese situation. I can handle that.” He pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. He unlocked it with a swipe, his thumb a blur, and opened a delivery app. He turned the screen toward her. “What’s the holy trinity? Your call.”
Sammy took the phone, her fingers brushing his. The contact was brief, electric. She scrolled, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Comté for the nutty thing. A really sharp white cheddar. And... something oozy. Gruyère? No, wait.” She tapped, her nail clicking on the glass. “Taleggio. That’s the melt.”
“Taleggio. Got it.” His voice was calm, a deep rumble next to her ear as he leaned over to look. He didn’t take the phone back. “Get whatever else you want. Sourdough, obviously.Tomatoes, maybe. Bacon if you’re feeling decadent. Add chocolate, wine, a whole wheel of brie. I don’t care. Fill the cart.”
She shot him a look, a flicker of her old defiance. “You’re funding a grocery haul, Gage. This could get ugly.”
“My card’s on there. Make it hurt.”
A slow, real smile touched her lips, the first one that reached her eyes since before the room with the restraints. It was a victory. She began tapping with purpose, adding items with quick, decisive jabs. He watched her for a moment, the focused intensity she brought to curating a sandwich, and then he turned back to the sink. The water ran hot again as he finished scrubbing the last pan, the methodical work a grounding counterpoint to the quiet tapping behind him.
She was silent for a long while, the only sounds the rush of water, the clink of a dish, and the occasional soft electronic chime from the phone. He dried his hands on the towel slung over his shoulder and began wiping down the already-clean counters, moving around the kitchen with a restless energy that needed an outlet.
"Done," she announced, her voice closer than he expected. He turned. She was standing, holding the phone out to him. The screen showed a confirmed order, a delivery estimate of forty-five minutes. "I got the cheeses, sourdough loaf, heirloom tomatoes, that fancy bacon you like, and a jar of cornichons. Also a bottle of Malbec that costs more than my last electric bill. And a tub of sea salt caramel gelato."
"Perfect." He took the phone, his fingers closing over where hers had been, and slid it back into his pocket without looking at it. "Go sit. I’ll finish up here."
She didn’t argue. She padded back into the sun-drenched living room and sank into the deep cushions of the leather couch, tucking her feet underneath her. She watched him from across the open space. He moved with a quiet efficiency that was fascinating, putting everything in its exact place, folding the towel just so, wiping down the faucet until it gleamed. His focus was absolute, a physical meditation. It was oddly calming.
He finished, finally, and walked over, sitting in the armchair adjacent to the couch, not beside her. Giving her space within the togetherness. He leaned back, closing his eyes for a second, the afternoon light cutting across the sharp planes of his face. A quiet stretched between them, but it wasn’t the choking silence from before. This one felt earned, fragile but real.
Sammy’s gaze drifted. His phone was sitting on the small wooden table beside his chair, screen down. Her curiosity, that old, hungry thing, prickled. He was so tech-savvy, his systems always layered, his codes complex. What did a man like that use to lock his world?
She reached out, her fingers closing around the cool glass and metal. She flipped it over. The screen was black, dormant. She touched it, and it lit up.
The background was a photo of her. Not a professional shot, not a glamorous one. It was her, caught in a moment she didn't remember being photographed. She was at her tattoo station in the shop, head bowed in concentration over a client’s arm, a strand of dyed black hair falling across her cheek. The light from the window was sharp, highlighting the ink stains on her fingers, the slight furrow in her brow. It was intimate. It was stolen.
Her breath caught. She stared at her own image, at the love evident in the choice of this particular, unguarded fragment of her life. Her thumb hovered over the keypad.The password. It would be something intricate, a alphanumeric maze. A final firewall.
Almost without thinking, she typed in his birthday. The screen shook briefly. Denied.
She tried a random string of numbers, a guess at some hidden code.Another shake. No.
Her heart began a slow, heavy drum against her ribs. She typed her own birthday.
The screen dissolved, unlocking instantly, seamlessly, presenting her with his home screen. The apps, his digital life, laid bare.
It wasn't just a password. It was a fact. A stone-cold, unadorned fact. Her date of birth, the numbers of her existence, were the key to his entire world.
The revelation didn't frighten her. It didn't feel like a violation. A slow, deep warmth spread through her chest, a feeling so potent it bordered on pain. He was obsessed with her. Not just attracted, not just in love, but fundamentally, technologically oriented around her axis. His digital heart beat to the rhythm of her birth.
She liked it. She liked the sheer, unapologetic scale of it. Her own long-held crush, her own quiet worship from afar, felt pale in comparison to this. He had built a secret religion, and she was the only deity. The symmetry of it, the dark mirror, felt less like a trap and more like a terrifying kind of harmony.
She placed the phone back on the table, screen down, exactly as she found it. She looked over at him. His eyes were open now, watching her, a question in their dark depths. He’d seen her. He knew.
“Taleggio was a good call,” was all he said, his voice a low scrape.
“I have excellent taste,” she replied, matching his casual tone, but her eyes held his, speaking volumes the words didn't.
Outside, a car crunched on the shell driveway. The delivery was here.
The crunch of tires on the shell driveway was a foreign intrusion. Rebel didn’t move from the chair, but his eyes snapped to the window, his body coiling. “Stay here,” he said, his voice low and immediate. He was up and moving toward the front door in a fluid, silent motion.
Sammy watched him go, the comfortable warmth from the phone’s revelation chilling slightly. She heard the heavy door open, a brief murmur of voices, then the soft thud of it closing. He returned a moment later, a paper grocery bag in each arm, his expression relaxed back into its watchful calm.
“All clear,” he said, a simple statement that carried the weight of an entire security protocol. He carried the bags into the kitchen and began unpacking with ritualistic care. Each item was removed, inspected, and placed on the counter: the wrapped cheeses, the loaf of bread, the deep red wine.
He washed his hands again at the sink, the water hot, scrubbing with a focus that bordered on surgical. He pulled a cast iron skillet from a lower cabinet, its surface black and seasoned. The butter he placed in it was a generous, pale yellow slab.
“Can I help?” Sammy asked from the couch.
“No,” he said, not unkindly. He didn’t look at her; his attention was on the rhythm he was building. The gas burner ignited with a whoosh-pfft, a blue ring of flame licking the pan’s edges. “Your job is to sit there relax, make fun of me. Maybe tell me I’m doing it wrong,” he said, finally glancing over, a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes, “is my job.”
The butter began to sizzle, a soft, promising sound. He sliced the sourdough with a heavy knife, the crust cracking under the blade. The slices were thick, substantial. He laid them in the foaming butter, where they immediately started to sing.
He grated the Comté and the cheddar into a cloud-like mound. The Taleggio he sliced into thin, yielding pieces. The scents began to mix: the nuttiness of warming butter, the earthy tang of the fermenting bread, the sharp promise of the cheese.
Sammy watched his hands. They were the same hands that held her so securely, so gently. The same hands tat had wired cameras into the walls of her life. Now they carefully layered cheese onto the golden sourdough, building the sandwich with an architect’s precision.
He placed the heirloom tomato slices, a sprinkle of salt, the crisp bacon. He crowned it with the second slice, its underside now a perfect, crisp gold.
He pressed it down gently with the flat of his palm, then weighted it with another, smaller skillet. The sandwich hissed in protest, then settled. The kitchen filled with a sound that was the very essence of comfort. It was a sound she hadn’t heard in what felt like a lifetime.
“You know,” she said, pulling her knees to her chest, “for a professional stalker, you make a damn good grilled cheese.”
He peered at the skillet’s edge, checking the browning. “It’s a multidisciplinary skill set. Surveillance, strategic planning, emotional manipulation, gourmet sandwich construction.”
“A Renaissance man.”
“A desperate one,” he corrected softly, his eyes on the food.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick with the aroma of browning butter and melting cheese, with the memory of her birthday on his lock screen, with the specter of everything that hung unspoken between them. The weight on the sandwich was doing its work, pressing their lives together into something new, something compressed and transformed by heat.
He lifted the top skillet away with a quiet clink. Using a wide metal spatula, he flipped the sandwich. The revealed side was a flawless, deep caramel brown, the cheese at the edges bubbling and fused to the bread. It was a minor masterpiece.
He repeated the weighting process. The final wait was the most profound. Sammy found herself holding her breath. This was it. The first meal in the aftermath. The first thing he would give her with all the cards on the table.
When he deemed it ready, he slid the entire sandwich onto a cutting board. He didn’t just cut it in half. He sliced it on a precise diagonal, the interior yielding in a long, slow pull of molten, layered cheese. It oozed slowly, a lava flow of white and gold and pale yellow.
He plated one half, added a handful of cornichons like green soldiers beside it, and brought it to her. He didn’t hand it to her. He set the plate on the low table before her, then retreated to the kitchen to prepare his own.
She waited for him. He returned with his plate and sat in the armchair again, not beside her on the couch. He met her gaze, gave a single, nearly imperceptible nod.
She picked up her half. It was almost too hot to hold. She brought it to her lips, took a careful bite.
Flood.
The crunch of the perfectly crisped, butter-soaked bread gave way to the sudden, lush give of the cheeses—sharp, nutty, creamy—the bright acid of the tomato, the smoky salt of the bacon. It was sublime. It was a flavor so intensely good, so simple and correct, that it bypassed her brain and went straight to her soul.
A small, choked sound escaped her. She covered her mouth as she chewed, her eyes squeezing shut against a sudden, stupid wave of feeling. It wasn’t just the sandwich. It was the care in it. The silent, obsessive devotion in every step. He had watched a French chef for her. He had remembered she liked it fancy. He had stood there and meticulously built this, for her, right now.
When she opened her eyes, they were glistening. She swallowed.
Rebel was watching her, his own sandwich untouched. His expression was taut, raw with a need for her approval that was almost unbearable to witness.
“Well?” he finally asked, his voice gravel.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a clumsy, human gesture. “It’s stupid good, Rebel.”
The tension in his shoulders released a fraction. He looked down at his own plate, picked up his half, and took a bite. He chewed slowly, analyzing it. “Could use a touch more black pepper on the tomatoes,” he muttered, a critic to the last.
She laughed then, a real, unexpected burst of sound that felt alien in the room. It was half a sob, half genuine amusement. “You’re impossible.”
He took another bite, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “You have no idea.”
They ate in quiet companionship, the only sounds the crunch of crust, the distant cry of gulls. The Malbec remained unopened. The gelato waited in the freezer. This was enough. This was more than enough.
Sammy finished her half, licking a smear of cheese from her thumb. She looked at him, really looked at him, sitting there in his black t-shirt and jeans, eating a grilled cheese with the focus of a bomb technician. The man who had torn a city apart to find her. The man who knew the exact sound of her laugh when she thought she was alone.
“Thank you,” she said. It was insufficient for everything, but it was a start.
He nodded, finishing his last bite. He set his plate aside, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The casual intimacy of the moment was gone, replaced by a gentle gravity.
“We need to talk about what happens tomorrow,” he said.
The air in the room changed. The warmth from the food, the shared quiet, receded like a tide. Sammy set her plate down carefully.
“I can’t go back to the mansion ” she stated, not a question.
“No. You can’t.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Your kidnappers network was extensive. Until Caleb and I dismantle it completely, any place connected to your old life is compromised.”
“Caleb,” she echoed, the name tasting strange. Her brother. His best friend. The nexus of all this twisted loyalty. “What does he think happened?”
Rebel’s jaw tightened. “He thinks Rob Grey grabbed you to get leverage over me for a business deal that went south. He thinks I got you back through… aggressive negotiation. He doesn’t know about the cameras. He doesn’t know about… my specific fixation.”
“He doesn’t know you love me.” She said it plainly.
A muscle flickered in his cheek. “No.”
She absorbed that. The vast architecture of the lie that shielded them both. “So where do I go?”
He looked at her, his gaze steady and utterly sure. “You stay here. With me. This property is a ghost. I bought it through layers of shell companies. It’s not attached to me, not in any way Grey or his people could trace. It’s the only safe place.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“And Caleb?”
“He believes you’re at a private recovery clinic, off-grid. He gets updates from a secure line. He’s worried, but he trusts me to handle your security.” He paused. “He should.”
The unspoken words hung between them: Even though I am the primary threat.
Sammy looked around the beautiful, sunlit room, the vast window framing the peaceful ocean. A gilded cage. But the lock, she now understood, was on the inside. She had clicked it shut herself in the bathroom. The power of that choice was still a faint warmth in her hands.
“Okay,” she said. It wasn’t agreement, not fully. It was acceptance of the current reality.
“Okay,” he echoed, relief softening the hard lines of his face for just a second.
He stood, collecting their plates. The domesticity of the action was so ordinary it was disorienting. He was a man who had killed for her, who had built a prison of devotion around her, now washing a dish she had eaten from.
He returned from the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. “You should rest. It’s been a day.”
She didn’t argue. The exhaustion was a physical weight, sudden and leaden. The food, the adrenaline crash, the emotional whirlwind—it all collapsed in on her at once.
He led her not to the master bedroom, but to a guest room down a cool, tiled hall. It was spacious, airy, decorated in neutral creams and blues. It felt untouched. Anonymous. A safe room.
“This is yours,” he said, standing at the doorway. “The bathroom’s through there. Everything’s new. I’ll be down the hall. First door on the left. You need anything, you shout. Or text.” He almost smiled. “You have my number.”
She nodded, stepping inside. The bed was large, inviting. She turned to face him, lingering in the space between the room and the hallway where he stood.
“Rebel?”
He waited.
“The grilled cheese…” she started, searching for the words. “It was… it was perfect.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, his eyes deep and unreadable in the shadowed hall. “I know,” he said quietly. Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps fading silently.
Sammy closed the door. She heard no click of a lock from the outside. She engaged the deadbolt herself. The sound was solid, final. She leaned her back against the cool wood, sliding down to sit on the floor, her mind replaying the careful, reverent way he had assembled the food, the look on his face as he watched her take that first bite. He had cooked for her. It was the most honest and the most terrifying thing anyone had ever done.